At the beginning of this episode, the middle school students are having a swim class. The kids from the land are a little surprised to learn that the kids from the Village of the Sea have never had swim class before. We also learn that it can be a little harder for the kids from the sea village to swim in the pool, because it’s strange for them to swim between the land and the water.

While the boys are swimming, Hikari slams against the side of the pool and breaks a toenail. Manaka jumps in to help him, and Chisaki can only look on. When the teacher realizes the injury, he asks Manaka to take Hikari to the school nurse. Manaka asks if Chisaki can come with them, but Chisaki says she will swim next.

After the swim class, the students clean up the classroom. Kaname is accompanied by one of their female classmates to take out the trash, and she appears to be developing a crush on him. Miuna and her friend Sayu are hiding nearby and pop out, saying they want to help with the Ojoshi-sama. Kaname asks the female classmate if she wants to help, too, and she says yes.

Later, when Hikari goes to the room where they’ve been working on the Ojoshi-sama, he finds Tsumugu leaving because he needs to help his grandfather. When Hikari enters the room, he finds his friends, Miuna, Sayu, and several of their classmates in there helping out. After Hikari stubs his injured toe and Manaka goes over to him, Chisaki makes up a story of having to go to the post office for her mother and leaves. Manaka chases after her, and the two of them end up in an argument before Chisaki leaves the school building. The rest of the episode focuses on Chisaki and Manaka as they grapple with what has happened.

The primary focus of this episode is finally back on the main characters. While I enjoyed the Akari storyline, it felt like she was overshadowing the main characters of the series. For this episode, the focus is on the triangle between Chisaki, Manaka, and Hikari. While Tsumugu plays a role in this episode, he didn’t really play one in such a way that he truly was part of the relationship web this time.

One of my favorite things about this episode was getting to see flashbacks of the main characters back when they were in elementary school. Oh my gosh, they were so cute and adorable! Hopefully we can see more flashbacks like these in future episodes, because the ones that appeared in this episode helped me to better understand how they related to each other back when they were younger.

I also appreciated the way the episode ended with Manaka and Chisaki. It wasn’t anywhere near a “happily ever after” ending, and it was also a realistic way to start closing the gap that has developed between these two longtime friends.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode of Nagi no Asukara. I’m looking forward to watching Episode Seven in order to find out how the story will progress from this point.

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